Conveners
Parallel 3A - Direct detection (calibration and new approaches)
- Valentyna Mokina (HEPHY)
Parallel 3A - Direct detection (calibration and new approaches)
- Victoria Wagner (Technical University Munich)
Searches for light dark matter (DM) imply the detection of sub-keV nuclear recoils. However, an absolute energy calibration in this regime is still missing. The CRAB project proposes a method based on nuclear recoils induced by the emission of MeV-$\gamma$-rays following thermal neutron capture. Single MeV-$\gamma$ transitions are of particular interest as they induce well-defined nuclear...
Potassium-40 (K$^{40}$) is a long-lived, naturally occurring radioactive isotope. This radionuclide decays mainly by beta emission to calcium, and by electron-capture to an excited state of argon. An additional electron-capture of K$^{40}$ to the ground state of argon theoretically exists but has never been experimentally observed. Predicted intensities are highly variable (0-0.8%) and this...
The CRESST-III (Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers) experiment aims at the direct detection of dark matter particles via their elastic scattering off nuclei in a scintillating CaWO4 target crystal. The CaWO4 crystal is operated together with a light detector at O(mK) temperature and read out by a tungsten Transition-Edge-Sensor. For many years these CaWO4 target...
A major hurdle in searches for sub-GeV particle-like dark matter is demonstrating sufficiently low energy detection thresholds in order to detect recoils from light dark matter particles. Many detector concepts have been proposed to achieve this goal, which often include novel detector target media or sensor technology. A universal challenge in understanding the signals from these new...
Astroparticle physics experiments often face unknown backgrounds, e.g. at low energies or near detector edges. This talk introduces the deficit hawk technique, which mitigates unknown backgrounds by testing multiple options for data cuts simultaneously. This can double the physics reach of experiments with partial or speculative background knowledge, and simplifies decisions on fiducial...
The expected signal from solar and atmospheric neutrinos looms as a future background for direct dark matter experiments. Misinterpreting this background would have huge implications for dark matter searches. This is because possible modifications to neutrino interactions remain possible. By measuring neutrinos at direct detection experiments we will be able to probe these modifications...
The Radiation Damage in CCDs (RADAC) is a collaboration between theorists and experimentalists with expertise in solid state physics, ultra-low noise CCDs (DAMIC-M) and radiation damage (RD50). In the first quarter of 2022, RADAC achieved its first goal of observing radiation damage caused by nuclear recoils in CCDs developed for direct detection of dark matter. Nuclear-recoil events were...
With its increasing statistical significance the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signal is a cause for tension in the field of dark matter direct detection. A dark matter explanation for this signal is under standard assumptions incompatible with numerous null-results of other experiments. The COSINUS experiment aims at a model-independent cross check of the DAMA/Libra signal claim.
In order for...
Phonon-mediated particle detectors promise sub-eV threshold reach for the increasingly relevant sub-GeV dark matter (DM) parameter space. Kinetic Inductance Detectors (KIDs), exploiting superconducting material physics via Cooper-pair breaking, have particular advantages as the phonon sensors when mounted on crystalline substrates. Their inherent multiplexability, non-dissipative nature, and...
Developments over the last decade have pushed the search for particle dark matter (DM) to new frontiers, including the keV-scale lower mass limit for thermally-produced DM. Galactic DM at this mass is kinematically matched with the energy needed to break a Cooper pair (~meV), making quantum sensors ideally-suited for DM detection applications. At Fermilab, we are constructing QUIET, a...
Ever since the discovery of accelerated expansion, the cosmological standard model $\Lambda$-CDM has been our best description of the universe on large scales. In recent years, however, significant tensions have appeared that cast doubt on the validity of dark matter being a cold non-interacting fluid, and the cosmological constant being a global parameter. Moreover, searches for weakly...
Searches for dark matter (DM), using a vast array of different technologies that cover a wide range of DM masses, have consistently returned null results. While most experiments have probed WIMP-like dark matter above a few GeV in mass, models of light (< 1 meV) bosonic dark matter are compelling and large swaths of parameter space remain unexplored. One such model, an ultralight scalar...
